


No (Wo)Man's Land

by ilyena_sylph, Merfilly



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-23
Updated: 2015-01-23
Packaged: 2018-03-08 17:56:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3218228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyena_sylph/pseuds/ilyena_sylph, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Gotham cut off from the United States, a Bat learns to depend on a Bird. Not his usual one at that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No (Wo)Man's Land

**Author's Note:**

> So, I (Filly) was asked for something H/C with these two, and while I didn't manage that, it gave me this and I dragged Yena into the fun.
> 
> It is No Man's Land... but canon disappears, and we run the ball the way we would with some events sort of intact, but askew, and others missing. Apologies to the wonderful writers of the original story, because as we researched the event, we realized that for a Bat-Event, it's actually VERY HEAVY on the women in it carrying the torches, both Rogue and Hero sides.

She'd been tied up with the funeral for Wesley Dodds when the earthquake hit, but Dinah was not one to let the government stop her from getting back into her home city when it needed her. She'd already been en route when the order to evacuate the city came down, and she raced ahead of the military to get in before they blew the bridges. Oracle, the mystery voice that had guided her through several missions and been the biggest reason for her move back East, hadn't reestablished contact yet.

That meant finding Batman, because she had no idea where, or who, the Oracle was. Finding Batman… well, she was every bit the detective her parents had been, even if people tended to forget that.

Besides, it wasn't usually that hard to find a man dressed up like an armored, scary bat.

* * *

Batman was struggling to meet the onslaught of a concerted effort from the mafia to put him down fast. He knew good and damn well that the government edict plus the catastrophe had made the ripest possible ground for undermining every effort he'd made to give Gotham peace and safety. Neither Nightwing nor Robin were available, Oracle was offline, and too many of his other threats were running loose for him to not end this push and redirect the mob into other venues.

For half a moment he actually wished Huntress was available. Her ties right now could make this easier. He wasn't certain where she had been at the outbreak, though, and only hoped grimly that she had survived the cataclysm. The police who had stayed were doing everything they could to hold back the tide of anarchy, working to get protection around the few agricultural sectors of the city. That meant Batman could not expect help from them right now.

He analyzed as he fought the fairly large group, trying to find anything in his environment to help him overcome the odds. He wasn't seeing much. As badly as the Bat was needed, especially with Bane still lurking and rumors of the Joker cropping up, he also knew that Bruce Wayne's influence might be the best way to fight this unjust situation that had struck his city.

He whirled to handle the gunman that had angled for a shot at his back, batarang flicking out, but almost immediately felt a knife puncture the armor behind his knee. He was going to need to move carefully to avoid injuring the leg more as he reached down to get the thrown blade out… and the pack of goons were closing in.

The last thing he expected was a brassy shout of "Hey, boys!" from a voice he knew, and one he certainly hadn't expected. As three of the goons spun to look that way, he tried again to wrench the knife out, which left him without an effective way to respond to one of them swinging a baseball bat towards his head on that side. He ducked, half-hearing a startled "Nets?!" from one of the goons as he took a careful step backwards. The bat swung towards his head again, while another kicked towards his ribs. That he blocked, but it drove him towards the half-collapsed wall off his side. 

"You know it," he heard, Black Canary in full sass, and there were more sounds of another fight nearby, "did you miss me?" 

"...honestly, no." That voice came from the ground at her feet, and sounded as though it came through a swollen jaw. He left the knife where it was so that he at least had both arms to defend himself with, and landed a solid punch to one of his own problems. 

"Aww, I'm sorry," Dinah almost cooed, between hard punches and kicks as she worked her way closer to where Batman was having one hell of a harder time than he should be with just a half-dozen or so more goons. "I missed you boys!"

"Not mutual, 'Nets!" came one guy's voice… and then the 'oomph' of air exploding out around a fist in the guts. Batman had to concentrate, couldn't take a chance on trying to see the dynamo in action, but she was bringing a fresh fight that had the goons edging back.

He idly noted in the back of his head that they weren't desperately pushing their fight as the retreat began; something about her had changed the playing field entirely. It had been too long since she ran here, before she'd taken the costume, before the League, and before he'd really settled in as the Bat. Perhaps it was the rumors of the harder line she'd run out West?

"Hell, 'Nets, we just want the freak out of our city!" a voice nearer to the escape route called out as Batman twisted just barely out of the way of a plank swung his way.

"Oh, right, because that's _such_ a fantastic plan when the entire rest of the country has abandoned us!" she snapped in that direction. What, had they gotten even stupider since she'd been gone? "You _do_ know they didn't evac Arkham, right?!" 

The guy lining up to swing on Batman actually stopped at those words.

Did the effect of madness actually mean that much to the mob now? Batman pulled his punch, and eyed the ones who had kept him tangled up to let the higher-ups get away from… her. Not from him. From her.

"Rumor has it the Joker has been seen," he said in a gravel-ridden voice, hiding the pain of standing on that leg, of the fire in his ribs from a hit earlier. "Imagine what that means with only a quarter of the police force to find him. Imagine the people desperate enough for food and medicines to do anything someone says to get it," he added. 

"Boss needs to know that," the one with the plank muttered, stepping out of his aggressive posture. "'Nets, he on the up and up about this?"

"It matches with what I've heard, boys," Dinah agreed, watching the way they were starting to calm down, starting to back away, and she headed towards the Bat, letting her gaze trail from face to face. "Things have been bad. They're only gonna get worse, now that they've cut us off. Do y'all want to try and deal with the loony-bin crowd on your own, or would you rather have us around to do that?" 

"You get the other freaks pinned down… lost enough of our cousins to Joker-gas already," the eldest of the crowd called to her, but his eyes went to the Bat as well. 

Batman did not let the frown show; was he the same as the Arkham inmates to these people? He kept his mouth shut though, letting Black Canary handle this situation. It would give him a better grip on her. He'd been certain she was out of city, actually, when everything hit.

Dinah nodded, "I know you have. Get on and talk to your boss -- no, bosses, isn't it? -- alright?" She paused, cocking her head as nobody moved, and said dryly, "Or am I gonna have to knock a couple more heads in? I don't wanna, boys, but you know I will." 

"Haven't lost your touch, 'Nets, at all," one of the boys quipped before he darted away from the scene. 

"We'll see you, 'Nets… and you can buy us a round when you make it to the local dives," one other called out to her. By and large, though, they were content to make good on the retreat. It let Batman finally get at the knife properly since the Canary was close enough to warn him if it had all been a feint to regroup.

She let her laugh follow them as they retreated, and finished coming to Batman's side. What was -- "Oh. That's what the problem was!" she said, once he had the blood-coated metal of a knife in his hand, relieved. "And it needs some work, I'd bet. By the way, hi, nice to see you but this whole situation _sucks_." 

She glanced around at the destruction, the sheer number of the buildings that she wouldn't trust a real canary's weight to, let alone hers -- or worse, Bruce's -- trying to decide where they could hide without being tempting to anyone else that might think now was a good time to try and take Batman out. 

"There's an old fallout shelter, one block over with access still open if you know where to look," he told her as he realized she was taking stock. "You weren't here during the event," he said, neutrally, as a lead-in for her to explain her presence _now_.

"Lead the way, then," she invited, wanting to get him to where she could check on him, make sure he would be okay. "No, I was a little busy with a funeral," she answered that blatantly leading question,, "but I heard what was coming while I was on my way. Barely got in ahead of the military... not that I was going to let them stop me. Have you heard from Oracle at all? I can't get a response." 

"Oracle is safe but the comm ability is down currently," he told her as he navigated the broken street and buildings to where the access ladder was, half concealed by the remnants of the walls that had once been the house above the shelter. "The funeral was related to your mother's team? I know the former Green Lantern has also not been seen in the city since the event." Batman had all faith that GBC's owner would be doing all he could to lobby against the government. "Huntress was in the city from certain signs I have seen… though it's been long enough that I am not counting on assistance from her at this point." He would not say that the woman was possibly dead or injured. "Both Robin and Nightwing were away from the city."

"Glad to hear that." It was a real relief, knowing that her mysterious partner was at least _safe_ , if not in her ears. She nodded at the question, glancing at him, momentarily surprised that he didn't already know. "The original Sandman passed away. I think Green Lantern -- he's decided to go by Sentinel, since there are so many others now -- is of the opinion he can do more good outside than in here," she added, while the news of Huntress being somewhere in the city was... interesting. She wasn't going to count the other woman out. "I know you'll miss both their help until they get here."

She was absolutely sure that they would, even if she wished the boys would stay out of what this demolished, broken, beloved city of theirs was going to become now.

"I wasn't counting on you being here to fill the void," Batman told her at that, and then he grimaced to find one of the rippling aftershocks had spilled a beam across the access to the ladder. That cover was heavy enough on a bad leg, but the beam was wedged by more debris. Still, it was the safest place to go right now, and he moved to get better leverage on the beam to move it. "The meta population not being here is in our best interests. We do not need cults rising in gratitude to them… or the escalation of violence from our local problems they would incite. So, yes, Sentinel's work out there would be better than being here."

She moved to help him, setting her strength into shifting the beam, her eyes on the rest of the debris it was part of. She hummed thoughtfully, nodding as she worked through the things behind what Batman had said. He wasn't wrong, they already had assorted cults dedicated to some of the heroes, even some of the villains, and that was one thing Gotham didn't need more of. Which didn't mean that she wasn't going to have some times she wished for her uncle's presence! But he wasn't wrong.

"Why would you?" she asked, wry, "it's not like I ever moved back, even after... well. After. But this is where I need to be now, so here I am." 

"I know you have been operating for Oracle off and on since… before Arrow's death," he said, attributing the pause to the effort to actually get the beam safely out of the way. "We do have a lot of work ahead. The city must have some order, the green spaces will need to be converted completely to food production, and there are the Arkham inmates to consider," he pressed on, to move past the losses in their community.

That still wasn't an answer to 'why would you', but it was probably all she was going to get. Practical, right. Time to be practical, try and think and plan. "You said 'a quarter' of the police force. Which departments had people stay?" She already knew Uncle Jim would never have left, even though she wished he would have. That meant probably most of his people, but.. who else, and how dirty were they? ...No, wait. Hadn't she heard he'd moved into local politics? Who... who could -- no time for that, not now. "And what about clean water? People can go without food for longer than they think they can, but without safe water..." The way he'd moved into practical points had let her ignore the way the reminder of the loss of her long-time lover -- not that they'd been together at his death -- still hurt.

"Some of Vice, Homicide, and a few Internal Affairs are toughing it out with Essen. The water plant has all the spare fuel the police could appropriate," Batman told her as he got the hatch open so they could actually get down into the shelter. "They've also cached as much water as they could find after the looting, and have employed demolitions to bring down buildings on fire instead of wasting water on them. So far, it's mostly worked. One main concern needs to be getting power back that is not generators." He then had to stop talking to actually navigate the ladder.

Essen. That was a new name, but he said it approvingly. She waited for him to get about halfway down, slipped in, and pulled the hatch shut again over them. The blackness was almost overwhelming, but she could descend a ladder in the dark just fine, and if Batman had been working out of here, there would be light available once they got to the bottom. "IA? Seriously? Well, there goes any chance of using this to finally clean up the Force," she said, listening to the echoes of it, "but good for Vice and Homicide." 

Demolitions... that was **smart** , and practical. Who was running what was left of the fire department, that they'd been that pragmatic? "Yeah, I can see that being the problem," she agreed, "but I'm gonna be useless on _that_ front. You could still fit what I know about engineering and anything that isn't transportation mechanics on the back of a stamp. That's gonna have to be your baby. 

"Talking to people, finding help to get things growing to feed us, breaking up what trouble I can find, those I can handle, though." 

"So I noticed," he said, with almost a wry tone as he made it to the bottom. He just leaned there, a long while, as the ribs and his knee both let him know they needed true attention now. He did move his hand to the switch there, activating the lights that he'd rewired to work off a small wind turbine on the nearest building still sturdy enough for it. "Canary, there is a first aid kit just to the left of the crates there," he said, in the closest to asking for help he'd managed with anyone except J'onn in a long while.

He wished the Martian was not away in space, but there was little J'onn could have done now anyway. The wail of human misery would have beaten the telepath down quickly.

His tone had made her laugh for a moment, and it kept her grinning as the lights came on. "Oh, good," she replied, getting her eyes adjusted to the light before she finished climbing down and got over to the kit. "I've got some stuff in the pouches and pockets, but not a whole lot. So what else hurts, and why aren't you sitting down yet?" 

That she asked as she carried the kit to the nearest flat surface that looked like it would support him. 

"Because getting there meant walking," he found himself responding, despite himself. As soon as it slipped out, he wondered at himself, yet… she'd always had a way of drawing him out of his reserve. A lot of it, he admitted to himself, had to do with the fact she'd never been afraid to tell him when to back off. He pushed away from the wall to get to her. "One of the bruisers slammed my ribs hard enough to jar them. The armor will hold those. It's just the leg that needs me to tend it."

She snorted, soft and amused, as she actually got a real answer, and even a practical one. He was right, there was nothing to be done about the ribs, unfortunately. "Needs 'you' to tend it. Sure, sure. It's in the back of your _knee_ , B, so unless you've become a contortionist, you'd better lie down and let me deal with it."

"I do know Nightwing; he might have taught me something," he answered that, but he did move so that she could tend the wound. "The armor has… ahh, you found them," he said as she discovered the catches that let the flexible knee pieces be removed. 

"In your armor?" Dinah snorted at him, as she thought that was all the response that silliness deserved. 

She scrubbed her hands clean with an alcohol wipe before she opened up the armor, wincing at the sudden crimson spill of fresh blood across her hands. "Nasty," she muttered, looking at the way the blade had gone in, before she started working on cleaning it up. It looked like it had sunk into, rather than across, the grain of the tendons and ligaments, but her own thighs were tensing with how much that had to hurt. 

Batman did not reply to that; she had a point and this would get him back on the streets faster. "Poison Ivy is on the loose as well. Catwoman… is helping," he said, with just a touch of defensiveness in his voice. "There are rumors that Two-Face is carving out a section for himself. I have not figured out yet if Penguin is in city or not."

It helped to brief her on the power players as he let her tend his leg. "Once food and water and power are secured, I may have to disappear for a time." Bruce Wayne was needed in Washington.

"Of course you'll have to go; _someone_ besides my uncle's got to argue against those idiots on Capitol Hill for us," Dinah replied, figuring out how to get that wound stitched shut and decently bandaged. "And good for Catwoman. We need whatever help we can get. Penguin... well, if he's here, we'll know about it before too much longer."

"True." Batman looked back toward her working on his leg, bemused for a moment. Sometimes it was hard keeping things straight on who knew whom… but she was part of the earliest wave of heroes, and entirely more astute than she pretended to be. "Maybe with you here, I will feel less torn when it comes to that point about leaving. I thought I was going to have to find Huntress to muzzle the mafia."

"Glad to help, B, and I'll help Huntress as much as I can. But B... you might be taking the wrong tack, there. Nobody knows how to smuggle like the mafia, and since we're now cut off from every legit shipping avenue in the world... we're going to need them." Finding Huntress was a top priority, then, because she'd know the current Family power structure best. 

For a moment, Batman frowned… but she had a point. With the situation being what it was, the city had to come together with all of her skills, even the underworld's. "Then we will have to have Huntress… if that is possible. Her ties will be invaluable, once she is persuaded to use them."

She patted his good leg gently, then went back to finishing up the bandage. "Yeah, they sure will. She's got a better chance than I do of convincing the Dons to live up to what they've always claimed to be about... protecting their people." 

"Once I find Azrael, I plan to set him on discovering the whereabouts of Bane and other high-threat rogues that may have been in the city or slipped in ahead of the demolition of the bridges," he said, offering her insight into his plans. "Jim Gordon will have to lead the civilian side of power and goods if it turns out that the inmates from Arkham have actually made it out."

She nodded as she picked up the armor to look at it, trying to decide what -- if anything -- could be done about the damage. So she'd been right, he had moved into the political arena. Oh, Uncle Jim... "Yeah, he can handle that, but... do you know if any of the other Ward council-members or Aldermen stayed with us? It'd be better if it at least _looked_ like we've still got a government that isn't just mafia and triads and tongs." 

Batman gave a dismissive snort at that. "Check the East End. Catwoman or Dr. Thompkins would know which grassroots politicians stayed. My suggestion would be to look at who leads the neighborhood watches through this and present them as local leaders if there's no one of note left."

Dinah nodded. That made good sense to her. Doc Leslie would know anyone in her part of town that was worth paying attention to, that could lead or help lead, people whose hearts were with Gotham. ...Teamsters, Oddfellows, Masons -- and why, she wondered for the millionth time, weren't there womens' groups like those? -- even the dock and manufacturing unions. 

She was going to have to do more organizing and networking and kicking people in the seat of their pride than she'd done in _years_ , but she refused to believe Gotham had changed so much that there weren't still good people just trying to get by here, that there weren't other people that still loved Gotham just as much as she did. "Good point. Yeah. Okay. Before I start looking for Huntress and leadership people, is there anything else you need me to do?" 

He moved to where he was sitting up, testing the bandaging, then looking up at her face. "Stay alive, Canary. Listen for Oracle. The Oracle will have a steadier flow of information as soon as they are back on the air." He then gingerly stood up and nodded at her. "Good work, with the field stitches. I'm certain Doctor Midnite would have been pleased to know you learned that from him as well as you took up the other JSA skills."

She smiled at him for that, delighted with the praise, and she reached out to take his hands, looking up at him. "I know I've been gone a long time. It doesn't mean I stopped caring." It meant a lot of things, a lot of sleepless nights trying to figure out how to survive on no more than she would make in her city and failing, up until Oracle had offered her enough to keep her head above water. "We're gonna make it, no matter what they think out there." 

He let her take his hands, let her speak… and felt a firm determination rise to meet her certainty. "We will," he said, and actually believed it. "Now, good luck, Canary. We both have work to do." He straightened completely, ready to go finish his tasks of this night, confident that this veteran of so many other crises would be more than adequate help.

She squeezed his hands and let go. "Sure do," she agreed and headed for the ladder back up out of here. He shut the light off when she was halfway up the ladder, and she muttered as she climbed the rest of the way, "Some of us don't have night-vision lenses, _or_ cowls with pointy ears to protect their heads, you." 

She found the latch by feel and opened it back up, slipping out onto the city streets again. Off to the East End now, because a certain kitty might have heard where Huntress was. 

She almost thought she heard him chuckling before she took off that way. 

Then again, he had let her lead the way out, something a lot of her male teammates had been hard-pressed to do over the years.

* * *

Hours were blurring into days far too fast as Batman tried to do everything he could to protect the citizens and the policemen. Black Canary had made her presence felt, and the citizens had a few more protectors in the form of the mooks, goons, and capos that lived in the lower-class neighborhoods. Neither he nor Huntress were being shot at on sight by the mafia anymore, though Huntress had grumbled about having to pick those ties up again.

With Huntress, Black Canary, and Catwoman to hold three major points of the city, and negotiations that made Two-Face and Poison Ivy allies for the present in place, Batman was ready to finally go and plead Gotham's case as Bruce Wayne. He couldn't put it off much longer, after all, or he'd need a better story about why he had been so delayed.

Oracle knew, but it wasn't something he wanted to broadcast, and neither Black Canary or Huntress knew who the Oracle was. So Batman dropped down into the harbor district, where Black Canary had taken up residence, to tell her in person. He didn't even question why; most other people he would have left to figure it out on their own. But there were ties between them and this city that went too deep for him to do that to her.

She was out in the streets, trying to keep as on top of things as she could be without radio, comm, or cameras to keep her informed, and without her bike to keep her mobile. She wasn't about to be seen on her bike when everyone else in the city was walking, and she'd never been a fan of the jumplines. It was bizarre, having the city be so quiet, so dark, but it did let her hear trouble farther away. 

A faint, barely-caught hiss of cloth caught her attention, and she spun towards it. "Oh. Hey B. How's your night?" 

He appreciated her swift reaction to such a small giveaway, nodding at her. "I think it's as in hand as it will get for now, Canary," he told her, falling in step with her so they could continue walking in the direction she had been going. "I need to leave the city. I do not want Azrael in the suit again; I do not think it is necessary or beneficial." He looked down at her, betraying none of the fact that he would never want Nightwing to feel he had failed by not being in the city, and giving Azrael permission to impersonate him again would do that. "Oracle is aware. Huntress will not be told by myself or Oracle. I leave that to your discretion."

She nodded -- she'd heard a little bit about Azrael's time in the Bat-suit, and none of it had been good -- and looked up at him. He hadn't had to come tell her... but he had anyway, and it made her smile, at least a little. She was a little tired, but at least she wasn't freezing cold like she'd been when the Sun-Eater came. When -- nope, she wasn't thinking about that. The important thing was, this wasn't as bad as it could be, and they were pulling things together. "If she needs to know, I'll tell her. We'll watch over the city, B. 

"Thank you for coming to tell me." 

He nodded at her, then looked around. The area looked cleaner, somehow, and debris was being corralled neatly to be sifted. "You're doing well here." He needed to go, but there were too many reasons to remind her how much good she did. He'd seen Oracle's file on her, seen the seeds of self-destruction in them. He knew she'd had trouble with the law on the West Coast. He'd watch her run hard… and then just vanish from high-profile heroics. He needed her steadier than his files suggested she could be, because this was a long-term problem.

She half-shrugged, flashed a smile up at him, even as she shook her head a little. That he thought she was doing well was a definite thrill, but... she wasn't the one doing this. "This? It's not me, it's the people. They just needed to know not everybody'd given up on them. Well, okay, that and to have some kind of idea what to do, where to start. But thanks." 

"Don't sell yourself short, Canary," he told her gruffly, before he squeezed her shoulder. "I'll return as quickly as I can… but it may take days, even weeks, just to get to the right person to plead our case."

He'd touched her. Reinforced that he thought she was doing well. He didn't touch people, not easily. She smiled brighter, her eyes flicked up at him, and she nodded at his last words. "See you when you get back, B. Have at 'em, and best of luck." 

"With your uncle there, I'll have a solid ally," he said in a lighter tone before he headed down toward the marina; out by sea, even with the Coast Guard in place, was going to be easier than the jet, and he had a one-man sub waiting for him.

* * *

There was little in the way of hope by way of news from the outside world as the citizens of Gotham buckled down to their new way of life. With the mob and the cops on one side, those higher-profile threats out of Gotham were having a harder time getting their own territories settled, especially when Two-Face was viciously attacking any non-Gothamite who tried.

Black Canary was still running ragged, keeping the various fires from erupting as she discovered she had not one but two young heroes in the city. Robin had to have snuck back in, but his girlfriend in purple was the right side of impetuous and reckless to get seriously hurt.

And then Huntress turned up with a third kid who managed to convey that the League of Assassin were involved, leaving the senior vigilante to worry over where the stress points in their alliances were. Those would be where the League hit, if she remembered Merlyn and Whisper A'Daire correctly, as well as Bronze Tiger's warnings.

"It would be a really good time for you to come back," Dinah murmured to herself as she studied the hasty sketch of the alliances she had made, thinking of the Bat and his analytical abilities. As it was, she was going to need to find Robin and see how well the boy had picked up his mentor's tricks and knowledge. Resigned to a rough trek out for that reason, she tucked the sketch into her costume and left the safety of her temporary headquarters in the half-broken JSA museum.

"Thought you'd be here when you weren't still in the wharf district," came the gravelly voice of the very man she'd hoped for as soon as she cleared the door. He was approaching the building, fully costumed… and stubbly where the cowl left his face exposed. 

"How," she asked him, planting her hands on her hips to look up at him, "do you _do_ that?!" 

But she was smiling as she said it, so relieved to see him, so glad to know he was back and -- at least for the moment -- safe. "Your _timing_. Come on in." 

He followed her in, soft huff of air at her for her words. "There is a media circus out there over our city, I just had to make a deal with a man I find loathsome in extreme, and you think my timing is the thing to talk about?"

"I'm not wasting my time, or the power, on listening to broadcast radio, so the media circus doesn't really matter to me unless it's people that want to come help," Dinah replied, pulling her sketch back out of the costume. "I'm sorry you had to make a deal with a slimeball, and yes, your timing is the thing to talk about, I was just heading out to find Robin because you weren't here --" she made a flourishing gesture with both hands, "-- and lo and behold, you appear!" 

"We'll blame Jason Blood and just never be certain on that, then," he told her as he dropped into a chair to look at her. "Jack Drake roused the media to Gotham's plight. It may very well be beneficial, for all that it is a security risk," he added to address the media circus being important. "His son is apparently in the city still." He kept his voice very bland; if Robin had not yet made his presence known to her, or had but she had not ferreted out Tim's identity, he wasn't going to blow it.

"...where _is_ Jason?" Dinah asked as she held the sketch out to him to let him take it and look it over. "And good for Jack, though he must be going completely mad, if his boy's in here..." 

She could only imagine how she would have felt if it was Roy, barely older than he'd been when he'd gotten clean cold turkey, alone in a city like this, and her heart twisted deep in her chest. She stayed quiet after that, though, waiting for him to look it over. She was fairly sure he'd have a million questions, hopefully she knew the answers to a couple thousand of them. 

"How did Huntress get those… no, not important," Batman said. "Sentinel sends word that you are still to consider yourself a member of the new team, by the way, even if you miss the inauguration of it." He flicked a hand at their surroundings. His eyes, however, stayed on that sketch, seeing a fragile web of hope in it. "What were you going to ask Robin?" he finally asked her, looking up at her with intense focus in his blue eyes, a stark reminder he wasn't using the lenses right now.

"Where would the League of Assassins put pressure to tear this apart?" Dinah asked. She could remember when he didn't have the lenses, though sometimes that felt like it had been lifetimes ago. It was good to see his eyes again. "They're here, though I don't know which members. The girl that told us... she's different." 

"Girl?" he queried even as he considered the question. He produced a pen and started listing weaknesses, prioritizing them by how likely the League of Assassins were to know them. He could do it in his head, but Black Canary had helped orchestrate this and deserved to see the reasons. "Also, Robin being in the city is half of a relief; his team did not know where he was." It wasn't a lie, and commenting on it would help preserve illusions for now. "Jason Blood is likely still recovering from Etrigan's mishaps during that last magical threat against the League itself," he added as an afterthought for her much earlier question as he worked. 

"The girl is someone Huntress found, mostly non-verbal, very … emphatic in her pantomime though," Dinah said. "She managed to convey there are assassins looking to end the hero interference in the city. I think Oracle has taken an interest in the girl since then. She's called Cassandra Cain."

Batman's head jerked up at those words. "Cain? With the League of Assassins in the city? Not al Ghul?" That made the eyes narrow, and he looked at his list, scratching off a couple of notes to place others in. "Cain is more direct than the kind of behind the scenes ploys a few of the others use. I'll have to meet this girl later."

She should have caught that. _Oh_ , she should have caught that. She'd been gone too long, too far out of this part of the lifestyle. "Why would he be the one here, though, with..." she trailed off for a moment, trying to figure out how to point out that the al Ghuls had something of a vested interest in Gotham. 

His mouth twisted a little as he took her meaning. "There is probably a power struggle. My ongoing difficulty with al Ghul is a two-edged sword. Anyone seeking to unseat him would love to remove me, just to irritate him and goad him into a lack of logic. My allies become targets by collateral damage methods; take an ally out to lure me into the open." A look of pain flicked through his eyes and the muscles of his jaw, remembering Jason.

She moved closer to him, laying her right hand on his left shoulder at that flash of pain across his face. "Well then, tall dark and scary, you're just going to have to stay way in the shadows and let us girls chase the League right the hell back out of our city." 

He blinked up at her, not having even thought of that reaction. "If I become visible immediately, it will keep all of you safer," he said, putting steel in his voice. "I can't let Robin come to harm again."

"Of course you can't," she told him, squeezing his shoulder enough to make him feel it through the cowl, "but we still haven't gotten Joker back under lock and key either. You're the only one that can find that -- monster," she decided on the term after a moment, though she wanted to say worse things than that. She'd been hunting him, when she could, but if she came face to face with the Joker, one of them was not going to walk away... and doing that when Batman had entrusted her with the city... the idea hadn't set well, and she'd been vaguely grateful that she hadn't found the clown yet. 

If there was any luck in the world, one of the cops still on the beat would see him by chance and _shoot_ him. The resulting celebration might damage the city further, but at last he'd be gone. "If you come out to play target for Cain... what happens then?" 

"I'm facing a hydra plus the Joker," he admitted. "When did you get to be the logical one?" he asked her ruefully. "I have plans in place to blend into the city better, as Bruce Wayne cannot be seen; he was known to be out of the city when things happened." That had been a rumor purposefully started as soon as the damage at the manor had been reported, to forestall death rumors. He'd kept his voice low, but he'd officially said what she already knew as far as his identity went.

He then reached up to rub his face with one hand. "I should go; going to need sleep before I start moving around again." He gave her a faint smile. "In the deep shadows, even."

For a moment, she was floored by what he'd just said. Yes, she knew perfectly well who Batman was, but... it wasn't like him to admit it aloud. Not at all like him. She dipped down and hugged him, then straightened back up, relieved that he was going to be sensible. She shrugged at him about the 'logical one' and spread her hands a little. She missed the flicker of surprise on Batman's face at the hug.

"Well, _someone_ in Seattle had to be." She even managed to say it lightly, though her throat ached and her eyes burned a little. "Sleep well. I'm going to go fill Huntress and Catwoman in on the new pieces, then swing by a couple of the parks and check the gardens." 

"Alright." He did catch her hand, for just a moment, at the memory of hot-headed Oliver Queen, heart on his sleeve, charging into every fray without a thought or care. He stood, suppressing a groan by will alone, so that he could go to his secondary base in all of this chaos. He'd been in the city long enough to know there were people who had wondered where the Bat had gone, but somehow it wasn't as bad as he had projected for his return.

Robin being visible had helped there, maybe, and Huntress had traded her costume for a Batgirl one, invoking his legacy. Maybe that had been enough.

Somehow, he thought it was the little fighter he was just leaving making her mark instead.

* * *

If Jim Gordon got any more tired, they were going to have to find an I.V. for him to pump coffee through. He was also thanking God that the precincts around the city had never, ever cut their coffee fund and had the stuff stockpiled like gold, and that Sarah'd been willing to cut some loose for him. 

Maybe that was why, for just a moment, when he saw the face barely out of the shadows, he felt a flash of memory and senses all jangling back to his first year in Gotham. It was just like the first time he'd laid eyes on an actual JSA member, and he felt a moment's flare of hope.

"If you looked any more like your mother, I'd have to believe in the Fountain of Youth, Black Canary," he finally said as he made his brain accept this was the daughter. That she was the daughter of his dead partner, he could not actually admit, because the vigilante laws were slippery slopes to stand on. And he preferred to keep it all as legal as he could.

//Oh, Uncle Jim.// The thought lashed through her, her heart ached for a second, and she smiled at him, bright and delighted. "Thank you, but I'm not sure I hold a candle to Mama," she told him as she stepped more out into the light. "You holding up okay?" 

"As well as can be expected." Jim turned back to his coffee pot and made a cup. "Black, or did you go soft?" There. She'd know what he meant, when it was tradition for cops to take it black. God, but what would Larry have done in this kind of mess? No, don't think it; the man had lived his life for Gotham and her people, dying for it when danger attacked that he couldn't put away. "Heard rumors the mooks were behaving because their favorite brawler was back in town."

"Black, thanks," she answered, while her heart warmed for that oblique comment. "Mmm, I'm not sure it's just because of me, but I did point out Capitol Hill didn't do us a favor and evacuate Arkham before they gave up on us. 

"It, ah, changed their tune just a little. Relatedly, we've got outside trouble that might try and shake things apart... which none of us need." 

"Oh? You're not the usual bearer of bad tidings, no matter how dramatic that entrance was," Jim pointed out. He came and put a hot cup of coffee out for her to take from him. It struck him that he'd never seen the original Black Canary wear such a concealing costume. "He's not… out, is he?" he let himself ask, because he was wondering, despite Robin's presence, if someone had managed to kill the man at last.

She shrugged one shoulder at the first bit, then took the coffee with a grateful sigh, wrapping her hands around it. "No, no," she answered, quick, shaking her head, "he's fine. Tired, but he's fine. I think he's chasing that clown. The trouble is, we've got at least one of the League of Assassins' heavyweights here, with thugees, or whatever they're calling themselves now. I don't know if they're specifically headhunting _him_ , just trying to get themselves another stronghold that doesn't have heroes, or -- " It was the mention of her mother that made her think of it, " -- or if they're after the power in the swamps, maybe the Demon... But whatever they're after, it's not going to be good." 

"I really, really hate magic," he told her at the last two possibilities. He then frowned, chewing it over. "Outsiders, when we've already got alliances that shouldn't even work." He did not want to think of his devil's deal with Two-Face, no matter how hard Bullock and Montoya were working to keep him from having to directly interact with the man. "Alright, I'll pass the word quietly through the boys and girls still wearing shields. And trust in you to have your mother's charm at telling the tough guys when to cool their heels."

"Gonna do my best at that, yeah," she agreed with a grin, while she drank some of the hot, wonderfully strong coffee. Nobody made coffee like a Gotham cop. "That it's _our_ city seems to be working pretty well, so far, at least.

"It... it's good to see you." 

Jim sipped his coffee, then nodded once. "Maybe some day when we have something like a normal life, you might come around, meet the lady in my life. Promise not to embarrass you too much." He then snorted. "Could re-introduce you to my daughter, if she ever lets me get her out of the shelter she's taken up residence in. Went to find her, and she proved to be as stubborn as her old man about sticking it out on her own," he said, fondly. "Seems to be a thing about Gotham girls being like their dads."

"Wouldn't have any idea about that," she said, lying through her teeth and smiling at him because she was sure he knew it. The oblique compliment to her had her smiling a little more. "And sure, that sounds good to me -- as long as you promise!" 

That... Barbara was still in the city? When she'd -- 

No, no. She'd think about that later, when she wasn't right in front of him. "And it'd be good to see her again, too." 

"I do promise. Think you'll like Sarah. Barbara… well, she never got out of being bookish." Jim wouldn't mind if Dinah could pull Babs out of her self-imposed exile tendencies. He just hoped Black Canary never came up… and he put those thoughts as far away as he could. He did not have time to think on secrets he wasn't supposed to know.

"Stay safe as you can, Black Canary. I'd hate to see you come home just for me to have one more reason to visit the cemetery, you hear me?"

"I hear you," she said, obedient, and put down the empty coffee cup before she stood to leave. "And I will, too." 

Jim got to see her leave, and he kept working on his own coffee, slowly, to make the warmth of it fill his empty stomach more.

"At least she's politer than he ever is," he murmured to himself before getting back to work.

* * *

Dinah hadn't intended to get tied down in a fight, but Two-Face's goons had numbers against the cops now that the alliance there had blown up. She couldn't leave the boys and girls in blue to handle them, not when she was close enough to respond. With the flash-bangs and smoke pellets she was currently carrying, she disrupted the united force squared off against the cops, then threw herself into the middle of them. It was, without a doubt, not the smartest tactic from anyone looking on the outside, but she was going to be damned before she let any of Gotham's finest go down on her watch.

Up above, another such watcher started to go down to assist, but Black Canary had been insistent and logical on staying out of sight while he hunted the Joker. Instead, he held back, batarangs ready to fling down to add to the chaos, as he watched. It only took him a few minutes to recognize that her rash tactics actually worked quite effectively for her, as she used the very people she was fighting against one another. For a woman that was pure human now, and one of the older women in costume, he had to admit that she could probably fight him to a near standstill.

He'd never really thought of her as that much of an equal, but when the battle turned effectively into a rout, favoring the police forces, he relaxed back, with almost a smile for the little vigilante.

It felt better than he ever would have admitted to have her home in Gotham.

* * *

Bane was not a rogue that the Canary knew at all, though the rumors of him defeating Batman had rippled out of Gotham some time ago. She had described him over the radio frequency to the Oracle and been dismayed at the 'do not engage'. She hated leaving a threat like that loose in her city...

So she walked into his line of sight anyway. "Bane."

The big man whirled, finding himself staring at a woman associated with the Justice League, one that carried a legacy from the JSA. He tipped his head, curious, for she was not the vigilante he was here to fight. "Black Canary, is it not?"

"Canary, no! Do not engage!" hissed into her ear, but Dinah kept walking forward.

"I'm giving you one chance to leave, Bane. This city is in hell enough without having you wandering around, jerking around on a leash, adding to the chaos." Dinah stood firm, chin up, her eyes hard and cold. Even his laughter did little to deter her.

"And what do you think you can do to make this ultimatum work, little fighter?"

Dinah glanced over her shoulder toward the alleys between the broken buildings, and about a dozen men, armed with guns, crowbars, and bats melted into sight. "This is our city, you see, and the locals who like feeding strangers to the fishes have taken notice. You might take me down, you might take them down. But all the Families know that there are people like you preying on them now. And they don't like it. So clear out, or for every one of us you kill or break, two more will come. Can't see how it would be profitable in the long run, Bane, for you to keep dodging that kind of a vendetta."

"There are many kinds of profit, Black Canary, and the satisfaction of hurting someone so bold might be enough to tempt me," he answered her. That the guns could be heard slipping safeties off and chambering rounds was not lost on the big man, though, and he smiled beneath the mask. "What does it make of you, woman, to wear the costume of the angels, and run with devils behind you?"

"Practical. A daughter of the city. Falcone, Maroni, and all the other Families want their city back. They are tired of you, of the League of Assassins, and all the other groups trying to steal it from them. So I suggest you leave." For emphasis, she slid into first pose for a kata from the many fighting styles she had mastered over the years.

Bane drew back, bowing his head to her. "I will not forget you, Canary, should you pass my way again." He turned to walk away, and she waited until he could not be seen.

"I am beginning to think you are as crazy as the Arkham crowd," Oracle said in her ear.

"O, we all are, when we pick up a costume to work outside the law against the rogues," Canary said wearily. She walked back to the men that had backed her up, grinning at them. "Thanks, fellas."

"Never impersonated the mob before," one guy said, getting chuckles from all the rest. "They're not going to try and recruit me now, are they?"

"Nah, sweetie. They can't be everywhere right now either. Go home, kiss your wife, and tell Mary I said hi."

* * *

Barbara flipped channels to talk just to the Bat. "Did you catch all that?" she asked him.

"I told you she was good," was Bruce's only answer, as he continued looking at the map of Gotham's underground passages. 

"There's good and there's cocky."

"She was Green Arrow's partner for a long time. Where do you think he got it from?" Bruce retorted, and Barbara sighed, getting back to monitoring the others via radio.

* * *

Dinah slowly came awake to the sound of a desperate voice in her ear. "—nary, please."

"I'm awake, I'm awake," she told the voice that didn't sound like the eerie electronic mask of her partner.

"I'm sorry, I know you just got to bed an hour ago, but Batman has gone silent, and he was on a trail that might have led to the Joker." The woman's voice sounded torn between trying to stay professional and worried out of her mind to Dinah.

"Last known location, direction he was heading, and time since radio contact?" Dinah asked. If this was Oracle, and it had to be as it was coming in on her ear piece, she just needed to be given focus. It had worked in their various arguments over Dinah's methods on the cases she had handled so far. She was sliding her costume on as quickly as she could, even the leggings, as the Joker used tactile toxins as much as Ivy did. "Dammit, I don't have a mask here."

"I'll get the new Batgirl to bring you one, but I can't let her follow you in."

"Of course not! Losing one Robin was enough!" Dinah snapped, then pinched the bridge of her nose. "Sorry. I have a thing about sidekicks."

"I know, Canary." The voice was very subdued. She then began passing on the coordinates and all other known information as Dinah headed back out into the city, taking the rooftops as far as she trusted them in a ground-eating jog. Batgirl met her silently before a tunnel entrance, and Dinah forced a smile for her. 

"Go home, stay safe," Canary said firmly. "If you follow me, I will find some way of kicking your butt, you hear me, kid?"

Batgirl leaned her head to one side, then backed away to turn and leave. That was one relief, as Dinah secured the rebreather in place with its attached goggles. She pulled a hood out of her pouches, tightening it around her head to protect the straps and as much skin as she could, then headed down into the tunnels to find Batman's trail.

* * *

With all the rock falls inside the tunnels, and the fact that Oracle's radio system wasn't penetrating down here, it took Dinah longer than she wanted to get to where she knew she was on track. Voices ahead told her she needed to be wary, and she took a moment to find a sewer system marking, telling her she was nearing one of the main hospitals that was still up and running. The idea of the Joker interfering here made her blood cold; most of the orphans of the city had been rounded up and brought here to help with the little tasks of taking care of people, just to keep them safe and occupied.

A dark spot on the tunnel floor caught her light, and she knelt, turning the small lamp she was using to UV light… and the dark spot went black, refusing to reflect back anything at all. That didn't mean it _was_ blood, but there was a strong likelihood of it. She looked at the nearby ladder, letting her eyes adjust, and noted the hatch above it wasn't closed all the way from a dim light creeping around the edge. She shut down the lamp, put it away, and trusted in Fate that she was where she needed to turn to get back above and on Batman's trail.

"Okay, self, maybe guarded," she muttered to herself as she climbed up the ladder in the dark. When she was all the way up, she paused, listening as hard as she could. The air was cooler; this had to be the actual sub-basement of the hospital. Nothing made noise, so she slowly moved the hatch. Nothing jumped her, and she was able to get up… to see two Joker-goons laid out and unconscious. "B's been here," she told herself, closing the hatch and dogging it against easy access in case the bad guys came back this way. Both goons were zip-tied, letting her move on.

* * *

The bullet wound in his abdomen was slowing him down, Batman knew. He still had not riddled out just what the Joker's intentions were, and only knew he had to stop the clown before more innocents died because of him. He had picked up the sounds of someone else tracking the dangerous man as well, and only hoped that he got to the Joker before anything else happened.

Unfortunately, the tableaux he finally found involved Sarah Essen and the Joker in a face-off over a baby in that murderous clown's arms. Batman had a batarang ready, one that would open to a bola around the ankles, but how to make certain the baby did not get hurt?

* * *

Black Canary was getting tired of ladders, tired of rooftops, and very tired of goons being in the way. She'd managed to avoid several, punched the lights out on three, and taken a small knife scratch through the sleeve of her costume before dropping a fourth with a kick to the head. But now she had gained the roof, following a trail of mayhem through the building up… and there was the Bat, at the other access point, with Sarah Essen and the Joker and a baby in the middle of their positions. She wasn't certain the Bat had noticed her, had turned off her radio after assuring Oracle she was on the right trail, and couldn't see a good way to rush this scene without one or two innocents being killed.

Thinking crazy had never been her strong suit, no matter what people said about her methods. Thinking like this psychotic clown was impossible. Yet she had to find some way to tip the playing field into their own hands.

What was that new girl, the one she'd seen with Poison Ivy, always saying? Canary had found her irritating, deluded, and more trouble than most sidekicks, but she'd had a distinctive voice and way of talking about this monster. Carefully, Dinah worked the mask off and focused on her meeting with Harley Quinn.

"Mistah Jay!" she called in as good a mimic as she could pull off for that high-pitched nasal voice, trusting the cop and the Bat to move if they got the opening they needed. The clown turned his head, back toward her voice, and Sarah did move, striking at the gun in the Joker's one hand as she dropped forward and down to try and catch the baby.

"Why you little…"

Whatever else he had been about to say was lost as the batarang went high instead of low, wrapping around his head with violent force on both ends of the now activated bola. The baby did fall, into Sarah's waiting hands, and the police officer rolled to protect the burden she held. Both vigilantes went for the Joker then, trying to take him down before he got his hands onto anything else he was carrying in his pockets. They were all so close to the edge of the roof, with the Joker flailing at the cord around his neck, his head ringing from the batarang punches… and Black Canary was there first, with a tackle to take him down.

"No no no!" the Joker ranted as he evaded with a drunken side step, and Black Canary barely halted her own slide over the edge. The the Bat was there, and he carefully punched to push the Joker away from that side, away from where Sarah was scrambling to reach cover. The Joker made an inarticulate sound of rage, hand moving toward a pocket… and Canary threw the gun he'd dropped as hard as she could at his crotch.

The strangled noise of pain felt good to the small fighter as the Joker's eyes rolled upwards and his hands dropped involuntarily to the now inescapable pain. Only he didn't suffer it long, because Batman's next punch was a solid uppercut, and laid the clown out on the roof of the building.

The next moment, the Bat was down to a knee, as his punch had opened the gunshot wound further. He knew he needed to strip the Joker's gadgets away, get him secured against escape or harming others… but black and gray legs were moving past his field of vision.

"Stay down, B; I've got this," Black Canary promised him. Over behind the air vents, Sarah was calling for police assistance, over the cries of the very living baby. Batman did as told, worrying at getting a pressure pack in place as Gotham's daughter handled trussing up the Joker as a gift to the PD. She stripped him down to his boxers, taking no chances with booby traps or gadgets, and left him that way.

"Commissioner Essen?" Black Canary finally said, as the woman came out with the baby in one arm and her service pistol aimed for the Joker's head. Batman realized there must have been something askew in the woman's demeanor, because Canary kept talking. "I understand what you are probably thinking right now. I do, really. But you can't. No matter what justice you think you can see in doing it."

"He hurts so many, kills so many." Her voice was thin, a little shaky, but almost wild with resolve. 

"And now he's caught, in custody, stripped of power, and I will testify to this entire event. My identity has never been that much a secret, if they try to wiggle out by insisting I name myself. We can get him for this, and maybe nail him for all his other crimes that the PD has evidence on. So let it work that way. Let the law prevail."

Batman felt his heart swell; he knew Black Canary set the line a little past his own. But he could hear her passion as she made the argument, heard as Essen responded with a click of a safety.

"You're right." He heard it as Essen gave a small snort. "Jim said to trust you. I can see why now."

"Jim Gordon is every bit the man I want to look up to, ma'am, and he puts his faith in you. That's enough for me." Black Canary then moved to Batman's side, checking his wound as she knelt down. 

"Need to get out of here," Batman told her softly. "But she needs back up until the police get here."

Black Canary nodded, then checked his pressure pack. She found his duct tape, secured it better. "My place is closer; I'll join you when I can." The look she gave him defied any opposition, and he just nodded, forcing himself up to withdraw from the roof.

* * *

"Do I need to go try and find Dr. Thompkins?" Dinah asked as she made it inside the JSA museum again, tracking Batman by the blood droplets.

"That should not be necessary, Miss Canary," a posh British voice greeted her as she turned into what had been the old meeting room to find the Bat half out of his armor under the care of the speaker. She sized up the man, placing him against a few press pictures and write-ups on Bruce Wayne. "The good doctor hardly approves of various measures taken by those of you who stretch the laws to protect the citizens."

Dinah grinned wryly. "I've gotten the speech more than once, all the way back to when I was about twelve."

"Stubborn?" Batman asked, mostly to distract himself from what was being done to him as he laid on the table, a space blanket from his pouches beneath him as the table was mostly salvageable, should they ever have time.

"Maybe a little." She came over, staying out of the light the current field surgeon had rigged to better see by. "Shouldn't you be unconscious?"

"Can't. Far-Eastern rituals to distance the pain from my conscious thought," Batman told her.

"You can, B," she said softly as she stood on the opposite side. "Oracle's giving me an all-clear… by the way, I swear I have heard that voice recently when it was not waking me out of sleep," she told him.

"You work and live in Gotham and know hundreds of people, despite having been gone for decades," he pointed out. "And there is always work."

"Work for others right now, Mister, and you better believe that I will sit on you if that is what it takes for you to get the four hours sleep I tend to run on," Dinah informed him, her voice going very firm as she met his eyes.

"Three."

"Four, and I'm not budging on that," she said, all the while knowing that the man tending her colleague was faintly amused at her.

Batman shifted his hand on that side toward hers, and she let him take it in a small shake to seal the deal. Only he didn't let go, and she didn't much mind. "I'll sleep," he said. "If you will."

"Already planning on it, B, as soon as I know I don't need to find a doc."

"Good, as it seems you could stand a stitch or two yourself, Miss Canary," the thin man operating informed her. It made her look at the knife scratch… that was deeper than a scratch and had never truly stopped seeping.

"Huh… and I never even slowed down," she murmured, more to herself than aloud. She gave Batman's hand a squeeze, then moved to tend her wound. By the time she had it cleaned out, Batman was out cold, and the man was finishing up with his tools.

"I will go now, so as to not draw questions," he told her. "Do look after yourself while suborning him into good behavior."

She laughed at that, then nodded. "Thank you."

"No, dear lady, thank you."

* * *

Bruce woke to the quiet of an unfamiliar building. He had to listen for the street sounds, but then the museum was actually well insulated, and Canary had blockaded all but the most hidden entrance with rubble and debris. It was harder to make his internal clock kick over, and he wound up actually having to find his timepiece in his pouch to find he had slept not four but almost five hours from the time he'd last noted.

He was still on the table in the meeting room, but someone had slipped a blanket over him. His ears told him there was someone breathing in the room. Opening his senses, he caught leather and sweat and something distinctly feminine, so it was most likely the Canary. He shifted slowly to try and rise without waking her, but space blankets such as he was laying on were not conducive to stealth.

She'd been mostly asleep still, after a wakeup about an hour in, but the rustle of the space blankets brought her eyes open. '...five hours?' was her first thought, as soon as she checked in with her internal clock, and she murmured a soft, "Hey, B," well before she sat up. Where she was had been nicely warmed, after all. "How's the side?" 

"Shot," he said dryly. "Arm?" he rebutted, showing he'd paid attention before letting himself go out. He worked his way up to sitting so he could get the rest of his armor back on. He really, really ought to have stayed awake that long.

"Superglue is a wonderful thing," she told him, amused and wry, peering (in the faint light coming in) towards where she knew he was, "so... better than your side, and wrapped up, too. I've got food stashed around here, if you're hungry. And since there's pretty much no way you're not..." 

"I can make my way home now; you've taxed yourself and resources heavily already for this crisis," he pointed out, trying to be logical… and regain some of the distance he'd lost in depending on her to hold the city together openly. "That was very good work on the roof, Canary."

She rolled up out of her 'bed' and padded over towards him, where she perched herself on the far end of the table he'd slept on and looked up at him. If she'd gotten the chance, she would've been thrilled with the opportunity to fling the Joker straight off the roof. If she'd been able to tangle him up for a moment more, the Commissioner might've been able to get off a shot before they'd gotten that monster subdued... but neither one had happened, and -- and this was Gotham, not Seattle. Plus, they'd been right in front of the hero that held tightest to the moral line, and she knew how much they needed that, as things dove into the depths of hell around them. "...Jim loves her," she said, eventually, her voice quiet, "and we... we already had him _down_. He wasn't a threat anymore, not right then." 

He looked at her in the dim light, mouth tightening for a long moment. "I meant distracting him and allowing us the chance to get him down," he said in a low voice. "For Gordon's sake, I am relieved you talked her down as well." //And kept yourself in check. I've seen your police file.// He had to stand to fully buckle on the torso piece of the suit, and wound up hissing as Alfred's stitches were tested under their dressing with the contortions.

"What else was I going to do?" she asked him, cocking her head, before a more practical question set in. "Is that thing going to try to electrocute me if I try and help you with that?" 

He started to decline, but the twisting was going to be hard to get the catches in place. "No. I repurposed the power supply for that part of it." He held still, keeping it close to 'in place' so she could find the connectors. The all-one-piece suit had given way to a suit that allowed access for injury treatment ever since his need to make it so heavily armored had proven dangerous to the wearer. "With any luck, the pressure from Drake and Luthor alike will soon push Gotham's status back into more legal territory," he told her, just to get away from discussing their difference of opinions on threats and where to draw the line.

"...ugh, hearing even one of the industrial branches of the family's name in conjunction with that creep is enough to make my skin crawl," she told him, shaking her head as she worked on getting the suit sealed back up around him -- and firmly stomping on the thought of how much fun it might be to start trying to get him _out_ of said armor. "But I guess we can't be too choosy about where the help comes from. Or at least, not right now. But then again.... what's in it for Luthor? It can't be just undercutting you..." 

"The records building?" Batman asked her, leading her to realize how at risk all the homeowners, business owners, and trusts were currently with it destroyed. Reconstructing those were going to be difficult, but if Batman could just get proof the records had been destroyed to make way for LuthorCorp's 'investments', he would be able to nail Luthor to the wall.

"Oh! Of course! Well, I'm glad _you_ were on top of that," she said, half-laughing at herself as the heel of her hand smacked her forehead, her mouth twisting. "Not so much my kind of trouble, but I still should've seen that." 

"You didn't have all the pieces; you'd been handling the negotiations between the various factions." He did give her a sardonic smile. "You realize we will have to dismantle those once the city is repatriated." He was not looking forward to that, but if Huntress could get him an accurate listing of Family Dons and the hierarchy, he might just be able to continue Canary's tactics of using them against the Arkham inmates until those were all rounded back up.

"Yeah, I know it," she agreed, her own expression as rueful as his was sardonic. "But that's once we're a functioning part of the world again, not yet. I know you're already planning it out," she flicked her fingers at him almost before he could scowl at her, "because that's what you do. But I'll get there when it happens." 

"How did anyone ever buy the blonde?" he asked her, half-seriously. "Yes, you will be there. It's going to hinge on you, and Huntress." He checked the catches he could reach, then scowled at the faint light coming in. "Is there still basement access to the tunnels from here, or did the earthquake collapse it?" He did not want to get from here to where he and Alfred were staying by daylight after all.

She shrugged and flashed a smile at him, "I _like_ not being taken seriously, B. And playing the bombshell flake helps with that... but this isn't the kind of situation where that'd be any help. About the tunnels, there's access, but it collapses a quarter mile southwest and a half mile northeast."

He frowned; his refuge was well outside that radius. "And no building capable of a line between that and where I need to go," he murmured. "You said Oracle gave the all clear. Any alerts since then?" He was going to need a new radio receiver; they'd broken his the night before in the scuffle that had injured him and slowed him down so much.

"Not that I heard, let me check in," she answered, reaching to tap the pendant at her throat. "Hey, O. Anything new?" 

"I'd've called you," the unfiltered voice told her. "Small bout of arson, but Robin and Batgirl were able to handle it. Things are quiet in the aftermath of … that." The voice was harsh, and could only be referring to the Joker's capture.

"We need a little quiet," Dinah answered, relieved. She was *sure* she knew that voice... somehow. How, she just couldn't come up with. "Figured you would've, but I was asleep pretty deep, so. Thought I'd check."

"If you still have the pleasure of grim and dark, tell him the kids are being careful with identities but working the day side of things to catch rumors," Oracle told him. "I'll expect to hear from you after sundown, if nothing blows up before then."

"Alright, can-do," Dinah agreed, before she shut the mic off again. "She says 'the kids are being careful with IDs, but picking up rumors on the day side'." 

Bruce let a sigh out at that. "I still don't know the one girl at all, the other is… well, reckless. But Robin has a good head on his shoulders." He couldn't do much about it now; he didn't have appropriate clothing to change into here. Unless… "Do you have men's clothing tucked away here? Something I might be able to work with?" 

"Let me go hunt around," she answered, trying to think of where might be most likely. "You may look like a period piece, but I can probably find something. So while I'm looking, go pick something for breakfast?" 

"I was trying to get out of your hair and avoid using your supplies?" he suggested, mildly amused by her. However, he was hungry, and she was the only one who knew where to look for clothing. Which, he realized, defeated the entire point of getting into the armor unless she turned up pieces large enough to cover the bulk of it. He didn't feel comfortable being tied down here with no communication gear of his own when the city was in crisis. Even if it was quiet, with the biggest rogue in custody.

"So you can bring me dinner one of these nights," she replied over her shoulder as she left the room to rummage the rest of the building, "and I don't mind your company, B." 

//Most do.// He had no idea why that thought passed through his mind. Maybe it was just the stress of a long term situation with no guaranteed solution pushing at his psyche. He mulled it over as he went to find her supplies and create something that would fortify them both against the day's work.

* * *

Somehow, in the aftermath of actually taking the Joker down, and then the United States recognizing Gotham again, Black Canary found herself rarely in her home city as Oracle picked up the thread of the world's problems again. She would start in on one mission far from home, finish it, and no sooner than she set foot in her apartment, it felt like, but Oracle was offering her another run.

Or the JSA, newly reactivated, was asking her to come lend a hand. That was something she couldn't say 'no' to, as it gave her a chance to work alongside her 'uncles' and one 'aunt', while mentoring the younger crowd picking up the legacies of lost heroes. She still was dead-set against sidekicks on her own, as Robin and Oracle learned when they tried to put Spoiler under her wing, but she would train any of them to be the best they could when they proved they had the heart for it.

She didn't ever want to fail a young person the way Ollie had failed Roy, or lose someone the way Batman had lost his second Robin. It was the reason she'd held firm to her no-sidekicks rule for years.

Finally, though, she seemed to have a clear schedule to be in Gotham for more than a night, and decided to spend it looking around at the new buildings, the repaired roads, and all the other signs of booming recovery. If she happened to be keeping an eye and ear out for the city's first protector of her generation, then who could blame her? She had found working with him and for him during the whole crisis after the earthquake to be satisfying on levels she had missed ever since…

//…ever since Oliver and I broke apart.// That thought sobered her, and she found herself stopping her rooftop run near the East End to reflect.

"I didn't think I could walk up on you," Batman's voice came, breaking her from her reverie. She turned to see him standing there, still in full shadow, and gave a shrug. 

"Thinking."

"About?" he pressed, as he really hadn't liked her body language when he spied her. As hard as she had worked for the city, and now for Oracle, he wanted to be certain she wasn't sliding toward one of her disappearances.

At least, that was the professional reason for it.

She tipped her head for a moment, considering if she actually wanted to answer that truthfully. Her first instinct was 'no, of course not', but... wasn't she tired of running away? 

"Oliver. History. The city. You." 

Batman tipped his head just slightly to one side as he considered that forthright honesty. "Sometimes I wonder how that man left as much of a stamp as he did on all of us," he answered her. "The city is showing that she is as much a survivor as many of us are individually. Torn down, broken apart, lost to hope of rescue… and yet she stands tall again, sheltering her people, protecting them." He did not address the part where she had mentioned him. That would require him to look too closely at his emotional reaction to her.

//'How that man left as much of a stamp'... What mark did he leave on you, Bruce? What do you think he left on the others? Or on me?// Did she want to ask? Then there were his words about the city -- and she tried not to think about how much the description sounded as much like her as it did Gotham. "...because everything he did, he threw his whole heart at. Even when that meant he didn't _think_ about any consequences." 

The scars that tendency had left on Roy were the ones she considered his worst failing, because he'd forgotten that he had a boy that still needed him in following another piece of his heart. But other than for Roy's sake, it'd been almost impossible to stay angry at him, with the way his heart -- and sometimes heart-break -- had shone out of his eyes. "And yeah, she... she's pretty amazing. 

"But we knew that, didn't we?" 

"Yes." He looked out over the city, considering. "Oracle said you should be clear for a few days. There is a standing invitation for you to join us for an early dinner," he added. "You made an impression, that night you convinced me to stay at the museum."

"I did?" she blinked, cocking her head at him as she walked over closer to him. "I -- all right, then. When counts as early? I mean, with your hours, I have to ask...." 

"Dinner is served at nearly six every evening," he said, with just enough of a wry tone to let her know that was a fixed point, whether he was there or not. "He feels that not enough people can be firm enough to convince me to go against my initial plans." Alfred was correct, even. However, Bruce was passing the message on just to face the specter of what this strange affinity for her company was, and if it lasted through a more peaceful activity such as dinner. "His discretion is complete, if you are willing to trust him that far."

She smiled at that comment about 'firm enough to convince me', still pleased that she'd been able to, and nodded -- then laughed at him. "B. I'm probably about to not _have_ a secret ID. I'm not worried about a man that's been at your side for years. Yes, I'll come to dinner, please thank him for the invitation." 

"I will." He then snorted softly. "Canary, you ran with _him_ for how many years? I'm surprised even Oracle managed to piece one back together for you." He started to add something, but his comm buzzed with an incoming alert from Robin, and he abruptly turned away. "Yes, R, I am here…" he said so she knew why he was leaving her so suddenly.

"I know," she said to his back, softly amused, and then she only murmured, "Tell R 'hi' for me," before she went to head out on her own way. 

Batman focused on his mission, using the lines to get over to where Robin needed assistance… while pushing the thought of Black Canary's influences on his behavior out of his head.

* * *

The Manor was still under construction, but there was a livable area now, cordoned off from the dust and clutter so that Alfred didn't have to protest quite so much. Dinah pulled up in the sporty little car she was currently in possession of… she did not ask Oracle where the cars came from, or the money that had bought her the knockout dress she had on… and looked at the efforts to smooth over the scars of the earthquake. It seemed to be a cooperative effort between landscaping and the house construction, and was largely succeeding.

Were the caves she had visited on her father's old case under this land? She wasn't certain; that wasn't her specialty. Mapping that long ago trip against the drive out here was too much brain work.

When she got to the door, the gate having been opened for her when she paused at it and smiled at the camera, she had just gotten her hand up to knock when the Batman's field surgeon opened the door for her.

"Good evening, Miss. Do come in."

"Thank you, Mr. Pennyworth," she answered and stepped inside, smiling at him. 

He smiled warmly at her. "Miss Lance, is it still?" he asked, not to be outclassed on research before meeting. "Your mother, rest her soul, kept such a lovely florist shop over in Old Gotham."

"It is still," she agreed, still smiling at him, while a soft warmth built in her chest at the proof Mama wasn't forgotten. "And yes, she did. I've been trying to track down who owns that property now, but, well...." She shrugged a little. "Thank you so much for the invitation." 

"It is my pleasure to have such a lovely guest here, especially one who stands her ground where needed," he told her, escorting her inside. "Dinner is close to serving; it is merely simmering and basting in its own flavors currently. Do you wish to freshen up, or do you wish to join Master Bruce in the dining room straight away?"

"I'd like to join him, I think... it's not that long a drive over, after all," she answered, flashing him a mildly amused grin. "As to standing my ground, I like to think I'm good at that, at least when it's important." 

"Indeed." He guided her to the small dining area set just off the kitchen, where Bruce immediately stood on her entry.

This was the Bruce captured at charity events for children, the casual ones. He had on a pair of slacks, but the ensemble was completed by a relaxed shirt and sweater-vest combo.

"Dinah," he said warmly. "I'm glad you could come."

"I'll just see to getting the food to the table now," Alfred said softly as he withdrew.

He looked wonderful, and she smiled at him as she came to meet him. "I'm glad to be here -- it looks like there are a lot of people hard at work putting things to rights," she answered, reaching out for his hands for a moment. "All local?" 

It wasn't, actually, a question, she was as sure of it as she was sure of her own name. "And the grounds look good, too. How's your afternoon been?" 

He squeezed her hands lightly, having held them longer than perhaps he should have. "Quiet… for some measures of the word." He waved a hand over toward the section of the house being worked on by day. "Worked half a morning at the office, but Lucius chased me out so he could get the real work done." 

She was beautiful. That thought hit him in the gut, and he started analyzing just how this would impact his life. He didn't date teammates, or tried not to. Pushy Amazons notwithstanding. But she wasn't a teammate now, and with her activity in the JSA, was unlikely to take back up her League status outside of dire emergencies. 

Why was he even thinking about this?

He moved so he could pull her chair out for her, then, rather than keep her on her feet.

"Mmm-hmm. 'The real work', indeed." She shook her head as she settled into the chair, keeping enough of her weight off it that it was easy for him to push the chair in under her. "I'm glad you had a quiet day." 

He'd been looking at her so strangely, so intently... what was he thinking? What had been behind...

"What about you, Dinah? I know you do some 'work' by day, which is appreciated, but what are you planning, now that you've come home to Gotham?" Bruce asked, picking up the crystal pitcher to pour her a glass of water. //Tell me something that makes the idea of sharing more time with you impossible.//

"...funny, I was just talking about that to Mr. Pennyworth," Dinah said, her mouth quirking in a momentary smile. "If I could, I'd love to get mama's building back, re-open her shop. I'd have to have help, of course, with the way I keep running all over the world," she gave him a wry glance at that, given who had her doing all that running, "but it... I'd like to." 

Bruce's eyes shadowed for a moment, then he nodded. "So the building did survive," he murmured, not having followed up on all of his assets yet. "I don't get into Old Gotham often." He remembered sitting in a car, outside a flower store, that first awful anniversary, trying to decide how to make a promise to his dead parents. Alfred had assured him the owner was discreet, and certainly there had never been news on where he procured his flowers for their grave and where they'd died that year.

He might have been awestruck enough to edge some of the grief away if he had known he did business that day with the first Black Canary.

"I've only been around the outside, but it looked stable... that whole block did," she agreed, but that shadow in his eyes... "What is it, Bruce? What's wrong?" 

"I met her once, there. Your mother," he told her. "I was plagued by reporters that entire first year, but Alfred had managed to get me away from them on that day." He shook off the sadder thoughts. "There was a playpen in a corner…" he added, implying she'd been there that day.

"There was what?" She stared at him, startled, her head going back a little. She would have been... three, maybe four? the year he was nine, if she remembered their ages right... and Mama had kept her at the shop pretty often, especially if Daddy was working, but she didn't remember that at all. 

Bruce half-shrugged a shoulder. "Was possibly the quietest I've ever seen you if that was you under a blanket in it," he said, letting his mouth curl into a smile. 

"I talk when I've got something to say," she retorted, but she was smiling at him, too, looking up at those blue eyes. Lord, but he was beautiful when he smiled. "Or I don't but somebody needs a distraction. I must have been sleeping, because Mama always said I talked all the time I was awake." 

"It was a nice touch, to see a real family enterprise. Your father's office was dark, but I noticed it," he told her. "You could see the way the bigger companies were trying to take over all the business in town, but there they were, thriving on their own." He didn't want her to stop smiling, still haunted by the way she'd seemed when he first saw her on the roof the night prior. "You'd start a florist shop down there? Seems risky."

"You notice everything," Dinah told him, not at all surprised, "and yes, I would. Of course it will be risky, but... I grew up there, you know? And now that I wouldn't be completely dependent on it doing well -- which most independent shops don't, these days, not with the chains having such strangleholds -- to keep my head above water, it... actually sounds possible. For the first time in... in a long time, it doesn't sound like just a pipe-dream. There are some other shops going into that area, with the renewal grants up for grabs, and the older buildings being in better shape than a lot of the newer ones..." 

Bruce was privately amused that people took her so lightly. He'd done it once or twice himself, but promised never again. "So you'd need to negotiate a good price with the owner of record soon, I'd think. Before he, she, or they realize the boom that could be happening down there." He nodded. "A revitalization effort… saw GBC picked up the tab on the JSA museum, so you can't necessarily go through Scott for a loan…" He half-closed his eyes, considering for a long moment the best way to handle this deal. Luckily, Alfred was bringing in the food and setting the table, though not with a spot for himself.

She glared at him indignantly for a moment, before she realized he was only being practical, considering her options from an outside perspective. "I wouldn't anyway," she told him, her shoulders squaring as she looked across at him. She was _not_ going to blush through this, or let who she was talking to change what she said one little bit. This was who she was... the good and the bad of it, and he could either cope or not. "He's got enough things on his plate without me turning up begging. Our, ah, mutual friend, did me a tiny favor, enough that I can actually go to a bank and not promptly get laughed out the door, and I _do_ know how to put a business plan together. 

"Certainly done it often enough..." 

"I'm sorry it's been that difficult to keep your dreams open," Bruce told her, sincerely with a deeper rumble to his voice. He then looked up at Alfred. "It smells wonderful. But you forgot your plate."

That deep, soft rumble would be enough to weaken her knees if she'd been standing, and it -- it was so obvious that he meant it. For all of his ridiculous amount of wealth, he honestly meant it. He... oh, what _was_ this man, and what did he think he was doing to her? 

"Actually, Master Bruce, I have a prior engagement in less than an hour, down at the clinic. The good doctor is running a vaccination program, and I had agreed to help, as they lost staff," Alfred told him. "You may leave everything in place; I will clean up on my return."

"Oh, will you tell Leslie 'hi' for me, please?" Dinah asked, turning towards him, "and this does all smell wonderful, thank you again." 

"You are most welcome, Miss Lance. Feel free to stop in as you need, for refreshments in the future," Alfred offered sincerely. "And I will tell Dr. Thompkins that you send greetings." He inclined his head and withdrew, giving them privacy.

Bruce half-felt like he'd been set up for a private date after all, but… he didn't mind. Dinah the woman was fascinating in ways that Black Canary the hero couldn't touch. Unfortunately, his plans to spend a mundane evening in with her was fast spiraling away from the 'center-reset-distance' he had intended and into a yearning that he knew could only end in pain for one or both of them.

So why wasn't he running?

Maybe it was because this woman had already proven she knew the dangers of dating inside their crowd. She had come out of it scarred and annealed into something more, but she knew the risks.

As Alfred withdrew, Dinah looked to Bruce again, re-focusing her attention. What _was_ he thinking? She could see the thoughts spinning behind his eyes, but she couldn't figure out what they were. 

"Thank you," she told him softly, about his words, about the sympathy. "I've come through it, though, and now... well, like I was babbling about, there's a chance again to do what I've wanted to for years." 

"That's true." He quieted long enough to choose his food, thankful Alfred had opted to let them make their own plates; Oracle had been unhelpful on Dinah's current dietary tastes. Once he had food, and so did she, he looked across the table at her. "A business loan would cover refurbishing and start-up costs, but have you considered a silent partner to minimize the risks? Someone who might be willing to help with the building inspections and such? Perhaps the current owner would be willing?"

Something in his casual tone set alarm bells ringing in the back of her mind. He'd admitted a connection to the building, a fondness. Everyone knew that Batman could be a little... thorough. Mama had never mention who she'd sold the building to, and trying to find the deed had sent her chasing through three no-longer-existing title companies and into a warren of possible owners she hadn't been able to untangle. Not at all helped by the chaos left behind by the quake... Her eyes narrowed at him, her fork held lightly in her fingers. "Given just how much red tape that building is _mired_ in, I have no idea who has title to it, or how willing they might be to let me chase a dream out of it, especially with a boom coming. 

"But you know perfectly well, don't you?" 

Bruce's mouth quirked, before he got serious. "Even if the world at large didn't know it, that building is a piece of Gotham's recent historical significance. I didn't know it until I met you, in costume, and then pieced together your identity. It made holding onto the building that much more important. I don't like for friends to lose things that are memories. I like it less for friends not to have a home to return to." He let her hold his eyes, so she would see his seriousness. "I will sell it at fair market values, based on today, not insider knowledge of the revitalization coming. Or… I will save you the cost of the purchase for a designated donation of a portion of your profits each quarter in lieu of lease payments." 

She put down her fork to think that over, a lump in her throat vying with her momentary temper at the rats' nest of trails he'd left in the wake of that purchase, but... it did make sense for him to have hidden it, and he wasn't -- he wasn't just offering to give it back to her, despite that he cared. Thank God, or she might have had to deck him, and that would have absolutely ruined what smelled like a perfectly lovely meal. He was offering a fairly straightforward bargain, one that made sense.

"Donated where, and what kind of a proportion?" she asked, curious and warm. She was more than willing to bet that wherever he said, she'd be more than willing to give it to, and like she'd said, she wasn't going to be dependent on the profits to keep her head above water.

"We can work out the charities later? I prefer local ones, focused on the community. Especially ones designed to help people rise above a need to commit crime to get by," Bruce said. "As for the proportion, I was thinking along biblical lines with ten percent. That would leave you plenty to invest for your own ventures." He gave her a quick smile for his next words, to soften any perception of being mean. "As I now see I am dealing with a woman who more than knows her way around the business world."

She had a storm of emotions in her eyes, and how that reminded him of Oliver. But that was very much the past, buried even, and she was a vital part of the present.

"The _small_ business world," she told him, wry and amused and shaking her head at him. The high-flying business world he lived in was nothing she knew anything about, but she knew dealing with creditors and loans and trying to hold an independent business together by the skin of her teeth and a sea of red ink entirely too well. "I know the small business world. As to the rest of it... oh, twist my arm harder, why don't you, Bruce? Deal." 

"We'll talk it all out during working hours tomorrow, sign the deal so you can get moving on it," he promised her. "I'd be lost in that world, Dinah. Corporations have egos to manipulate, while small businesses have to court their clientele more carefully, from all I have seen." He then took a bite of his food finally, to put the business phase of dinner aside. He was looking forward to wrangling that deal, but she was here to eat and share company.

She had to smile at the idea of him being lost on any front, but... he did have a point about the egos of the mega-corp world he maneuvered through so easily. The world Oliver never had been adept at, but hadn't really known how to live outside of, either. "That sounds good," she agreed with him, "and you're right, this looks far too good to keep talking shop over." She gathered up a bite of her own meal.... and oh, oh that was good. Her eyes half-closed as she savored the wonderful blend of flavors, humming a softly delighted note. "...if I ate like this every night, I'd have to remake my costume every month. This is _fantastic_." 

He chuckled. "If I ate like this every night, I'd be in the same boat, Dinah. Alfred tailors the meals to match the needs of the house… and the events," he said. "I believe he's celebrating meeting someone stubborn enough to keep up with me."

He could not stop looking her way, though, as that pleasure in the food was written all over her face with such a sensual nature.

She dropped her eyes for a moment, then looked back up and smiled at him, playful and affectionate, as she brought her off hand up to point at her own heart. "Stubborn? Me? I have no idea what you mean." 

"Pull the other one seems to be coming back into style for that kind of statement," Bruce said evenly. "The only person I have never seen you able to deal with through sheer willpower was Guy. And Guy tries everyone past their patience. Even 'Captain Whitebread'," he added, amused.

"Guy doesn't have enough sense to know when he's beat," Dinah said, once she quit grinning at the first comment, "and I'm still sulking that I missed getting to watch you lay him out -- wait, _wait_. **He** lost his temper at Guy, and I missed that, too?" 

Bruce nodded. "He did it in his polite way, but for him… it was interesting to see." He found her … adorable? … interesting for that little slide-whine of her voice at learning Marvel had been pushed too far by Gardner as well. "Do you want anything other than water? I should have offered earlier."

"It's still so early, I should probably stick to water... unless there're teas easily available?" This meal really deserved a good wine, and she had no doubt those were abundant in this house... but it really was too early for that. Too early for her to even consider drinking with a man she was enjoying the company of _quite_ this much. Though -- no, no, she was definitely not thinking about that. 

//Restrained. And teas… good.// "Any teas I should avoid?" Bruce moved his napkin to the table so he could rise and go get a pot of hot water and tea-blends for them each. "This early in the night, I tend to go for a green blend."

"Oh, that sounds wonderful," Dinah answered, smiling at him, "and... no, as long as there's actual tea in it, I should be fine. Some of the herbals, I'm not so fond of, but since a green sounds lovely, no problem there?" 

He smiled at her. "I'm pretty certain I know just the one to make for you." He left her for a few minutes before returning with a tea-service. He really did appreciate the electric kettle to bring the water to steeping temperature so swiftly. "Are you planning on going out later?" he inquired. That he would went without saying; unless the League had him, Batman patrolled, at least a little.

"Of course. I'm in the city, aren't I?" she asked, "well, just outside of, anyway. It's strange, all the differences... but then, I was gone so long, it's probably easier for me, hm?"

"You can relearn it as if it were a new city… but then it might be more jarring for you, when you come to a park, or a street corner that you _know_ is one way… and now it is not. Or, sometimes worse, one that has not changed, though everything else has." Bruce poured for them both, then resumed his meal. He liked that she did plan to be out; he would have understood her taking time to herself, as hard as Oracle pushed her, but… she was more like himself in that regard.

"Yeah, I've seen some of both," Dinah agreed, her mouth quirking just a little. "They're both pretty unsettling," she added before she went back to enjoying the meal in front of her the way it deserved. He settled to it as well, and actually felt a pang of regret when she left to go to her patrol and he headed down to ready for his.

* * *

"I got your invitation and was surprised, but here I am, little birdie," Selina purred as she settled into the chair opposite DInah. "I barely got to to talk to the real you in that whole mess of the earthquake, and you've not been by yet."

"After that ruse we'd pulled with not knowing each other, I thought it good to keep up pretenses, in case Oracle turned out to be something I needed to work against," Dinah said, even as she reached out and took her friend's hands. "It's good to see you, Selina." She settled back, glad the cafe was mostly quiet.

"You've got something on your mind, Dinah," Selina said once they both had ordered and gotten food.

"Yeah," Dinah agreed, "I do." She hadn't expected to be able to play Selina, and she was glad to be proven right. "I'm sort-of thinking about doing something a little.... maybe a lot?... reckless, but before I even start, I needed to talk to you." 

Selina got a wicked smile on her lips. "Oh this is priceless." She leaned forward. "Considering I should have known you'd be at risk. I mean… taller, older, dangerous, suave, charming? I'm right, aren't I?" She was by no means upset, only vastly amused at her girlhood friend's tastes in men.

" -- I am not that predi -- okay, yes I am, I really am," she couldn't even get the words out before she was starting to laugh at Selina's expression. "I... you're okay with that? I mean, you two are... Well. You two..." 

Selina gave a pretty little shrug. "Currently enjoying a bit more… seasoned scratching post," she said in a delighted little purr, knowing just how it would provoke Dinah.

Seasoned... season -- "Selina!" You're my age! You -- you're -- !" 

She got a very pretty little shrug in response. "What? He's never grown up much past a good tom cat stage," Selina told her. "It's enjoyable… and if you're occupying broody boy, I won't be faced with choosing between them when they both show up thinking we have a date."

"Well, I can't argue with you about him not growing up, let me tell you, being -- " //on a team// "-- working with him has sure proven that, but.... Really? That happened? Tell me all about it?" 

"Gladly, pretty little bird," Selina said, settling in to share a good afternoon of gossip, food, and possibly shopping.

* * *

Batman was still not accustomed to having someone who brazenly tried to get inside his radius without intending harm to him. He shifted enough to say he was aware of her, then continued watching the city street below, anticipating a violence outbreak.

"I don't tiptoe around things any more, B," Canary told him. "I'm not that nineteen year old kid anymore, and I think you're smart enough to understand why I don't like to play games with words and emotions."

"Mm?" he invited, remaining silent other than the noise of interest. 

"I like you. I know you tend to stay detached from people… but I think you want to see what will happen as much as I do."

//She really is a stick of dynamite attached to a two-ton hammer,// crossed through Bruce's mind, but Batman was working. That meant keeping this focused, addressing it swiftly, and not letting it interfere.

"It will most likely end poorly for you, me, or both of us," he said. "But yes, I am intrigued."

She laughed, half-mocking, half-bitter. "I'm the one that's already been at that ends badly for both… and I'm willing to take the chance again. Pretty sure the big scary Bat doesn't like being outmatched in courage on anything."

The tone was so challenging, and yet amused that Batman could not take offense. Instead, he reached out, brushing a gauntlet-covered hand against her gloved one as she stood in front of him but out of his field of vision.

"Courage is never a trait you lacked, Canary." He felt her fingers twine around his, encouraging him. "We can try."

She smiled up at him, obviously pleased, and then rose up on her toes, her other hand wrapping behind the back of the cowl. "That's all anyone can do, handsome," she said, against his lips, and then kissed him. 

"Not fair," he murmured when she let him have his mouth back. "Kissing you should be something I get to do one of these times with my full attention." He still remembered that first kiss, a ploy to make Oliver jealous… and how it had made things interesting for a time. "Right now, two of the gangs have marked this street out for their own… and it's coming to a head. So if we have it settled that we will try a relationship, do you want to stay and help me clean up?"

"Absolutely," she answered, looking back over her shoulder at the street below. "And after that... maybe you can do something about that 'full attention' thing?" 

"Yes," he agreed, before the first sign of trouble gave them the reason to make their entrance below.

Batman had to admit the idea of this fight ending with them going home together felt more right than any of his attempts to run away in recent years. Especially when he watched the powerful little fighter keep up with him effortlessly.

Maybe this could work.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. We prefer Barbara Gordon as Jim's natural born, legitimate daughter and tend to write her that way.  
> 2\. The timeline on this event is huge but doesn't mesh well with all events in Birds of Prey or JSA where Dinah was appearing. So we condensed a bit.  
> 3\. The Dinah-knows-Gotham's-goons is a fanon we work with, given her parents, and her stubbornness to learn from both of them. It makes sense in our heads that she would have had to practice busting heads somewhere.  
> 4\. In similar vein, we know recent years in DCU white-washed Dinah to never-a-killer, but the Grell years on _Green Arrow_ were too formative for my (Filly) concept of post-Crisis Dinah to ignore. Believe me, she's killed in that book, actively and passively.  
>  5\. Bruce Wayne has a strong sense of psychology, and we refuse to write one that doesn't apply it to himself. He's had several LONG relationships through his canon, and we refuse the Lonely God road for him.


End file.
